Executive functioning is your ability to engage in goal-directed behavior: it includes self-control, planning, intrinsic motivation, emotional regulation, working memory, and focus. Executive function impairments can really fuck up your entire life.
The good news is that, for many people, non-medication coping mechanisms for executive function impairments work really well. The bad news is that the list of non-medication coping mechanisms for executive function impairments looks something like this:
- Put your keys in the exact same place every time.
- Use a to-do list.
- Use a planner.
- Write down events in your calendar along with when they occur.
- Work in a place without distractions.
- Do pomodoros.
- Have a morning and afternoon routine.
- Schedule a specific time to do the thing.
That is, it’s literally all things adults lectured you about when you were a kid and forgot about an important form– again— or didn’t do your homework– again— or can’t find your shoes– again. (Pomodoros are an exception but I feel like they have a certain offputting spiritual similarity.)
It makes sense that that’d be true. Presumably non-medication coping mechanisms for executive dysfunction were independently discovered many times and spread until they became conventional wisdom. Many people have subclinical issues with executive functioning; for genetic reasons, people related to people with serious executive functioning problems are particularly likely to have subclinical issues. They’re trying to give advice that actually does work.
But it also means that using those coping mechanisms feels like admitting to the people who lectured you as a kid that they were right and actually the problem is that you’re Insufficiently Virtuous and if you only acquired More Virtue then you would be able to solve the problem.
I’m not sure there’s a solution to this problem other than training parents in motivational interviewing, or at least convincing them to give advice at literally any time other than immediately after your child failed to do the thing when they are already full of shame and self-hatred. Seriously, guys. You’re going to give your children lifelong planner-related trauma and they’re going to miss way more doctors’ appointments than they would otherwise.
One problem with non-medication coping mechanisms for executive dysfunction, at least as communicated via parental lecture, is that the things that work for people with moderate to severe executive function issues are usually very very specific. I know several people whose lives literally fell apart when Google shut down Google Inbox, because they were using those features, and no you can’t just replace it with Gmail Gmail does a different thing. I know a person who can only use Habitica as a to-do list app, because the gamification aspect gives them the internal motivation they would otherwise lack.
I have several times attempted to find One Place Where My Keys And Wallet Live, Such That I Will No Longer Lose Them. However, my first attempts all failed, because I got clever and tried to put my keys and wallet in some place other than the counter next to the front door, which is literally the first flat surface I encounter when I enter the house. If I have to take more than three steps in order to put my keys and wallet in a place, I will not put them there.
People with executive function problems also often have to defend their coping mechanisms with a fervency that seems anal-retentive to people without executive function disorders. For example, many people have to enter a plan into Google Calendar immediately the second they think of it, because if they delay for even five minutes they will never enter it into Google Calendar and they will miss their appointment. Some people have to carry their planners around with them everywhere no matter what, and losing their planner is an emergency of a similar urgency to childbirth. Those who have a routine might have to do exactly the same routine in exactly the same order every day, because if they feed the dog before they drink their tea everything will fall apart and they’ll be in their underwear at 2pm.
(This is another subject on which the parents of children with executive function problems could improve. If your teenager finds something that works for them, things that disrupt it are emergencies and they cannot ‘just do it anyway’. Either prioritize getting them the things they need to handle their executive function problems or don’t lecture them when they forget to do their homework.)
Finally, unless you are very very lucky, non-medication treatments for executive function issues are not going to get you to a neurotypical level of functioning. This is often a grave disappointment to people with executive function problems and their loved ones; what’s the use of all that work if you’re just going to miss appointments and fail to run errands anyway? The answer is that successfully running nine out of ten errands is actually way better than successfully running two out of ten errands. It’s a tremendous improvement in your quality of life and your ability to do things, even if a normal person would be able to do all ten errands. It’s important to compare yourself to where you used to be, not to where other people are right now.
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I feel like this describes everyone I know. I have ADHD. Maybe all of my friends do too? Are there actually people who can remember to do things after getting distracted for five minutes?
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Mandatory plug for Orgmode , the most amazing todo list manager you can find. Calendars, task tracking, habit building, reminders, synchronistation, journaling, the works. Plus you can modify everything to fit your needs on top of very sane defaults.
It’s an EMACS plugin originally (many new EMACSers mention that they picked it up because of how great orgmode is!), there are mobile apps independent of EMACS and you can use Org in the other sane text editors vim and atom.
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I’ve been seeing Orgmode get mentioned a lot recently, but it seems like something that has a fairly big up-front commitment cost. Do you happen to know of any good getting-started articles that might make this initial process easier?
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I have dyspraxia and, though I thought I had more motor coordination issues than longer-term planning problems, Google Calendar has changed my life. I started using it on a whim about 15 months ago because I needed to remember to do something two months in the future. Knowing my phone had a calendar app, I opened it intending to just enter this one thing. But when I saw the functionality, I thought it’d be interesting to put in my work schedule (then two-week alternating, so not fun). And the rest is history, as they say. Basically, the way it changed my life is that I felt less anxious accepting invitations to things. Before that, without realizing it, I’d been turning events down because I was worried I’d forget about them, especially if they were more than a week or so in the future. So now my social life is much improved with significantly less anxiety.
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I don’t suppose you have advice for the condition “I can’t get myself to do a single thing on a todo list unless I wanted to do it anyway, in which case, the list doesn’t matter”. That’s an executive disorder function right?
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This is a hard problem; I don’t know of any great wonder fixes other than “hope there is a drug which is accessible and works for you”. That said, one thing I have gotten nonzero mileage out of is the following strategy:
(1) Pick a thing on my to-do list that seems like even in my current state of unwillingness-to-do-things, I ought to be able to do. (So maybe not “write the paper”, but at least “take out the trash” or “get out of bed and take a shower”. Ideally something with a low time cost – “open Word and type one sentence of the paper” would work.)
(2) Count backwards from some number, usually 10.
(3) When I reach zero, I will do the thing. Not “when I reach zero, I should do the thing” or “when I reach zero, I really ought to do the thing and I’d be a terrible person if I didn’t”, but just accept as a fact that when you reach zero, you will go and do the thing, as surely as any other part of the causal structure of the universe.
I find that this has a much higher success rate, and that the part of my brain which hates doing things can at least be fooled into starting a countdown.
Part of it might be that what’s at stake is no longer just the thing that I should do today, but the entire integrity of this countdown system, and then the part of my brain that cares about deontology and promises and things gets involved. YMMV, but it’s an easy thing to try.
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I usually have the same problem, and I would like to add what worked for me.
One of the problems I noticed was that the longest my to-do list, the less I could do any of the tasks.
In my case, it felt like any effort would be meaningless, as it would not reduce the list at all, and I would never finish it.
Then, I divided my list in sub lists considering the tasks priority, and I put aside the ones I definitely wouldn’t do that day, because either it has a low priority, or couldn’t even be done now.
I also try to sub-sub-divide them to have smaller blocks that are grouped by topic or complexity.
When I see the smaller lists, I can put myself to work easily, as it looks like there are just a few things necessary to complete it.
I also do something close to what ravenclawprefect described, creating a very small sub-tasks that is achievable at the moment.
Sometimes, I just create a dummy task, like setting up what is needed to do to start the task, or even something that is not related to it at all.
They are very easy to complete, and give me a boost of confidence to keep working.
After doing them, I can start tackling the real task, and eventually, I can feel myself just keep working on it without wanting to stop.
I guess my repulsion to start working is much higher than the real trouble of working, but I cannot consciously decide that is just an illusion, and I still need to trick myself to surpass this initial repulsion.
Another tool that helped me was rewarding/praising myself for both starting and finishing a task.
The finishing one is easier, as I strikethrough the tasks from my list, and I see it closer to being finished.
For starting, I usually just praise myself for doing it with my mind voice, and I “reward” myself with a smile.
Even if it is forced, like “I will smile now because I did this”, it still help me to get in a better mood and fells like a real reward.
After some time doing it, I noticed that it reduced the initial barrier to start the tasks, as there is some pleasant feeling associated with start doing them.
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Elaborating on what @renato said, one idea from my therapist that might be worth a try is to have a “NOT to-do list”. The items on this list are things that you will definitely not do today. You’re forbidden to touch them.
Then make your TODO list like this:
# Today
* Get a Hello World Android app compiled from Python
* Complete 1 module of the online class
* Call mom
# NOT to-do
* Finish the TensorFlow tutorial
* Write 5 slides for the presentation
* Clean the kitchen
* Practice Tengwar calligraphy
* ⋮
This way, almost all items of the Ever-Expanding, Energy Draining TODO List of Hell becomes safely quarantined in the NOT to-do zone, which is very important that you do not do. Every day, you pick a small subset of the items and cut-paste to the Today section. You’re not allowed to pick more items after you’re finished; go do something playful, fun or relaxing that you feel good after doing. This is like mental hygiene and will make you less stressed and anxious, which in turn will make you more likely to sustain the rhythm the next day.
If you didn’t manage to do the items in the Today heading, no worries; that’s not a sin (doing the items in the NOT to-do is). Just move the undone stuff back to NOT to-do area, and try again tomorrow. I expect most people will get better at estimating with time, but it won’t ever be perfect. The point is, as per OP, that perfection is impossible and doingsomething rather than nothing is great.
(A related technique is the non-work hours, where you assign a set time of the day – e.g. 18:00 to sleep – not to work, but for NOT working. This helps you keep the mental hygiene of doing things for yourself, and also helps with procrastination—if you know you can’t work after 18:00, you’re more likely to do something at 16:00 than if you have no deadline.)
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This is a really great post on how important our executive function is! I really like how you emphasize the non-medical treatments for people who struggle with using their executive function for whatever reasons. I can see how many of them would be very helpful to people! I write my own post on executive function and how using it can relate to our own sense of well-being. My inspiration for articles like this is fueled by my interest in positive psychology, which asks what it means to live a meaningful and fulfilling life from a scientific perspective. Feel free to check it out and I welcome any contributions you may have to the content. Great post, keep up the good work, and I hope you are doing well!
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